Normally the grand opening of an eyeglass store at a suburban mall on Kendall Drive would not be so very grand.

But this was less than the usual misnomer, given that Rick Scott himself showed up in all his gubernatorial grandness, wielding ceremonial scissors the size of hedge clippers. As the governor went at the red ribbon across the shop entrance like a line item in his education budget, Scott bestowed the prestige and the grandeur of his great office on America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses.

Imagine. Gov. Scott, arriving in black cowboy boots and a black SUV, came to bless an unremarkable shop in The Palms at Town and Country Mall. The suits down from corporate headquarters in Lawrenceville, Ga., were fairly beside themselves over their good fortune. Normally the chain, with 350 stores in 37 states, could not have persuaded a city commissioner from Podunk, Ala., to cut the ribbon without sweetening the deal with an extra dozen chocolate doughnuts.

Governors tend to expend their grandiosity on a new factory or hospital or military base or park, providing the park comes fully equipped with photogenic children and golden retriever puppies. America’s Best offered pastries; no puppies.

Scott not only showed up at Friday’s ribbon cutting, he stood before TV news cameras and parroted the company’s sales spiel, “Two pair of eyeglasses for $69.”

Admittedly, the press turnout was sparse. Governor or not, this still came down to a mundane event at an ordinary retail venture, snuggled amid the usual strip mall suspects — Marshalls, CVS, Publix, Mattress Giant, Community Blood Center, Jenny Craig, Publix, Häagen-Dazs, Asian Nails & Spa and other stores that, sadly, had suffered through their own grand openings without a Florida governor in attendance.

More police than press loitered on the sidewalk outside. I seemed to be the only newspaper guy who bothered. And I kept looking longingly at that other new business across the shopping center parking lot. If the governor had wanted full-blown guv-worthy coverage, my fellow news hounds might have been more accommodating if he had chosen the Blue Martini. Particularly on a Friday, when a business plan of pretty bartenders, live music and a ruckus happy hour might seem a bit more newsworthy than eyeglasses. Even at two for $69.

A few martinis and the press might have forgotten to ask why, out of 282,572 retail outlets in Florida, Scott had anointed America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses with his singular endorsement. It’s not as if South Floridians are stumbling around blind for want of retail eyeglass outlets.

“You ask me, it’s none of the governor’s business,” suggested Gonzalo Cabarga of Ideal Optician, just down the road from the governor’s shindig. Cabarga could name four other competitors along this stretch of Kendall Drive.

“Jobs,” Scott explained. He said the chain has promised to open 20 stores in Florida over the next year, hiring 200 employees. Scott said America’s Best was a fine example of new businesses attracted to Florida by his philosophy of “low taxes and less regulation.” (Given recent scandals on the fringes of the healthcare industry — think pain pills and toxic implants — South Floridians might not be so adverse to regulation.)

But 200 new retail jobs in an intensely competitive field like optometry, with independents like Cabarga already fighting it out with chains like Visionworks, Pearle, For Eyes and big box retailers, one might wonder whether Florida will actually net 200 new jobs. Or will these 200 jobs come out of the hide of another retailer? Scott, however, insisted that the coming of the America’s Best chain only reflected a resumption of the state’s growth.

Still, it was a little peculiar to read an official release issued Friday from the governor’s press office that could have passed for ad copy: “America’s Best offers a full range of optical goods including eyeglasses, contact lenses and a selection of more than 1,500 frames. Customers can get two complete pairs of glasses — including single vision plastic lenses — from only $69.95, including a free eye exam.” Maybe Scott only wants to be known as Florida’s visionary governor.

Cabarga shrugged off this new business threat. He said about 30 percent of his trade comes from dissatisfied customers of the big chains. “They come to me and say, ‘I can’t see out of these new glasses.’ ”

But Cabarga doesn’t much appreciate Scott (the governor of all the people maybe, but not all the optometrists) using his office to pitch the new competitor down the street. He called Friday’s exercise “a waste of taxpayer money.”

“Ask the governor if he’s wearing two-for-$69 glasses.”